Week 2 Reflection

Effective communication is a vital part of any successful organization. A successful classroom requires effective communication between teacher, students, colleagues, and parents and guardians. One method of communicating with students, parents and guardians is through a classroom website. Setting up a website that provides vital information concerning the classroom including a calendar, homework assignments, announcements, information about the teacher, school information, and provides a method of recognition for the students is an excellent way to communicate with parents and students in my classroom. Initially, the amount of time necessary to set up a classroom website is consuming, but once the major items were in place, it would be very useful to communicate vital information to all who need it.

Students could go to the website to look up homework assignments, see their work displayed, receive recognition, and connect to links that would take them to fun educational sites that correspond to what is being taught in the classroom. Parents could check on classroom policies, look up school schedules, check announcements, and stay connected to what is going on in the classroom. The classroom website is certainly a tool that will be useful in helping me meet my classroom objective of communicating information to my students and their parents and guardians.

I understand the importance of communicating with my class members and know that effective communication will be essential here in our cohort as well as with my future colleagues. Emailing is an effective way to discuss things with others in my many groups and my pod. I send out questions and receive replies to help me along the way. Hopefully, I can be helpful to others as well. The discovery of the ability to share documents on line and carry on discussions in our pods has come in handy already. With so many group projects, it certainly is an ingenious way to manage all the projects in a convenient manner. This mode of communicating with my classmates will apply to my future communications with colleagues as well.

There are many pros and cons associated with using technology into the classroom. One pro is that it provides different options to present information that might reach students. Technology can be used to motivate and engage students who are accustomed to working with technology daily. Technology provides a convenient mode of communication. Technology allows for collaboration among colleagues as well as among students. Technology provides a wealth of information accessible with a few clicks of a mouse. However, with so much information available, a teacher or student could become overloaded and never find their way out! Another con is that although most people are embracing the use of technology, a few may not have the resources, knowledge, or even the desire to use these new technologies. Another con is that there needs to be a balance in all things. A human touch is still better than dealing solely with technology; it would be a cold and inhumane world if we resorted solely to technology over human interactions.

In regards to the video clips, although I could not get the link to “Mr. Duey Fractions” to work, I simply googled the name and it connected me to the site. I thought that Mr. Duey is an awesome teacher who has gone to great lengths to provide a creative and fun method to teach his students fractions in this case. Looking at his website further, he makes CD’s for purchase on numerous topics and takes requests from teachers for more. I believe teachers need to be creative and ingenious in order to engage students in the learning process. The Web 2.0 appears to be a way to communicate and collaborate using technology to engage and motivate students. Going to the Digital Sandbox site, I found that they are encouraging teachers to integrate new technology into the learning environments in order to engage students and allow for reaching additional learning styles as suggested by Howard Gardner.